every document, and where to get it
The hardest part of studying abroad from Nepal isn't the application. It's assembling a stack of papers from eight different offices, in the right order, before a deadline you can't move. Here is every one of them — who issues it, what it costs, and the address you walk into.
Nothing here is secret and none of it needs an agent. What it needs is sequence — several of these documents can only be issued once you already hold another one, and two of them depend on an offer letter you don't have yet. Start with the list, then read the order below it.
Your destination decides which of these you actually need, and adds one or two of its own. Every country page has a documents section that lists exactly what that country asks a Nepali applicant for, and where in Nepal you hand it in.
Do these out of order and you lose weeks. The dependencies below are the ones that actually bite — the rest can be gathered in parallel while you wait.
Passport
Everything downstream carries your passport number, and the name on it becomes the name on every other document. Apply before you sit an English test — a mismatched spelling between your passport and your test result is a real and common problem.
Citizenship & civil records
You need citizenship to get a passport. Birth and relationship certificates come later, for the financial file, but the ward office is slow — start early.
Academic documents
Transcript, character certificate, migration and provisional from your board or university. Independent of everything else, so get them out of the way while you have time.
English test
Book early; you may need to resit. The name and passport number on the booking must match your passport exactly.
Translation, notarisation, attestation
You cannot attest a document you haven't been issued, and you shouldn't attest one you might have to reissue. Do this once your academic set is final.
Financial documents & police clearance
Both have short shelf lives. A bank balance certificate from ten months ago proves nothing about today, and several missions want a PCC issued within the last three to six months.
The MoEST NOC
Comes after the offer letter and before you remit any tuition. Nepali banks will not send the money without it.
Medical exam
Only at a panel clinic your destination recognises, and usually only once the visa process asks for it. Results expire.
This is the single most useful thing to understand about Nepali paperwork, and almost every checklist written abroad gets it wrong.
Nepal is not a party to the Hague Apostille Convention, so no Nepali authority can issue an apostille. When a foreign university or embassy asks you for an "apostilled" document, what they can actually be given is a chain of attestations — issuing body, then ministry, then Ministry of Foreign Affairs, then in some cases the destination's own embassy.
That chain takes days, not hours, and each link will only stamp a document the previous link has already stamped. Getting it in the wrong order means starting again.
Four places account for most of the walking. Their details are kept in one place across this whole site — if an address changes, it changes everywhere at once.
Department of Passports
Department of Consular Services, MoFA
National Examinations Board (NEB)
IOM Migration Health Assessment Centre — Kathmandu
Each guide lists the offices that matter for that specific document, including the ones outside Kathmandu.
One spelling, everywhere
Pick the exact spelling of your name from your passport and use it on every form, every test booking and every application. Fixing a mismatch later costs more than getting it right now.
Photocopy before you hand over
Scan and photocopy every original before it leaves your hands. Offices lose things, and a scan is what you send when a university asks for a soft copy at 2am.
Originals travel with you
Attested originals go in your cabin bag, not your checked luggage and not a courier. Reissuing from abroad is slow and expensive.
Dates expire
Police clearance, bank statements, medicals and test scores all have shelf lives. Gather the long-lived documents first and the short-lived ones last.
The name on your certificates
School certificates often carry a different form of your name than your citizenship does. If they differ, you may need a one-and-the-same-person affidavit — find out early, not at the embassy.
Nothing here needs an agent
Every office on this page deals with students directly. Paying someone to stand in a queue is a choice, not a requirement.
Do I need to attest every document?
No. Most universities accept scans at application stage and only want attested or certified copies later, if at all. Attestation matters most for the visa file and for regulated professions. Check what your specific institution and mission ask for before paying for a chain of stamps you don't need.
Can I do all of this from outside Kathmandu?
Partly. Passports are issued at district administration offices as well as the department, police clearance can be applied for online, and Tribhuvan University sends certificates to regional offices. But MoFA attestation, embassy submission and biometrics are Kathmandu-only, so budget at least one trip.
How much should the whole document set cost?
Government fees for the core documents are modest — the large costs are the English test and the medical exam, not the paperwork. We publish each fee on its own guide with the date it was checked, because they change.
Someone offered to get my documents faster. Should I?
Legitimate express services exist and are published by the offices themselves — fast-track passports, express police clearance. Anything offered outside that, especially involving a document you did not earn, puts your visa and your future at risk. Refusals for fraudulent documents follow you for years.
My name is spelled differently on my citizenship and my school certificates. Is that a problem?
It can be. The usual remedy is a sworn affidavit stating both names refer to the same person, notarised and — where the chain requires it — attested. Deal with it before you start applying, not after an embassy queries it.